1. Executive summary - CORDIS · 2016. 12. 13. · InnoSense FP7-REGPOT-316191 PROJECT FINAL REPORT – OCTOBER 2016 1 1. Executive summary Reinforcement of BioSense Centre – ICT

InnoSense FP7-REGPOT-316191

PROJECT FINAL REPORT – OCTOBER 2016 1

1. Executive summary

Reinforcement of BioSense Centre – ICT for Sustainability and Eco-Innovation –

INNOSENSE is an FP7 project funded under the FP7-REGPOT-2012-2013-1 programme (Contract

No: 316191) whose major objective was to stimulate development of BioSense Centre, Novi Sad,

Serbia and foster it to become an institution recognizable for its research and results in the field

of ICT applications in agriculture, ecology, environmental protection, and forestry. The Project

aimed to strengthen not only research capacities, in terms of human potential and research

infrastructure, but also business and innovation potential of BioSense Centre, as well as to support

knowledge transfer and collaboration with industry, future participation in Horizon 2020 programme,

and ultimately to ensure sustainable development of BioSense.

BioSense Centre was established as an organizational unit at the University of Novi Sad, and during

the Project execution it evolved to an independent institution BioSensе Institute - Research

Institute for Information Technologies in Biosystems. Namely, the Project and the achieved

results represented a genuine quantum leap that had boosted BioSense’s research and innovation

potential and consequently paved the way for the project ANTARES that was granted to BioSense

Centre within prestigious Horizon 2020 Teaming Programme, which ultimately led to foundation of

a new institution.

Development of the BioSense has been achieved through seven strongly interrelated work

packages, whose tasks were focused on reinforcement of research capacities and innovation and

business capacities, and dissemination and networking activities.

Reinforcement of the research potential was primarily performed through the employment of

new experts and their secondments to partnering institutions, and equipment purchase.

Namely, eleven experts were employed within the Project, 8 of which become permanent staff of

the BioSense, covering all major scientific fields of the interest of the BioSense, namely nano and

microelectronics, signal processing and knowledge discovery, remote sensing, and biosystems.

Research capacity of the BioSense has been also strengthened through the secondments of the

BioSense staff in which they were trained in complementary skills and exposed to advanced working

environments in the EU.

Equipment purchase in amount of 950.000,00 EUR positioned the BioSense laboratory as the

leading laboratory of its kind in the region, as it includes LTCC technology, photolithography

processes with 1µm line resolution limit, thin-films technology, thick films technology,

micromachining processes in silicon, glass and ceramic, nano-manufacturing processes, optical

laboratory, optical inspection and spectroscopic analysis in UV, visible and NIR spectra, electron

microscopy, in UV, visible and IR spectra, thin film characterization, semiconductor analysis and

high frequency measurements. In addition, research infrastructure has been enhanced by the

equipment aimed at soil parameters mapping including autonomous robots equipped with

hyperspectral cameras and soil probes, as well as XRF analyzer.

Innovation and business capacity of the institute has been tremendously reinforced through the

establishing entrepreneurial spirit among researchers and building of a strong network of

partners, which resulted in a number of successful project proposals, in particular 10 from

H2020 calls. Furthermore, the BioSense established PA4ALL - Living Lab in Precision

Agriculture, the first living lab in Serbia that communicates with potential end-users of our

solutions and introduce them to the potentials of the BioSense Institute.

Dissemination and networking activities ensured an extensive network of partners including

academia, SME, industry, and policymaking partners and thus visibility of the BioSense work and

activities. Moreover, those activities ensured that the BioSense is widely recognized as an

outstanding institution whose breakthrough and needs-driven research bring new solutions improving quality of biosystems and their sustainable use, and consequently economy development

on national and regional level.



2. Description of project context and objectives

Biosensing technology offers state-of-the-art multidisciplinary tools that enable both in-situ and

remote, rapid and reliable acquisition, transmission and manipulation of the coordinated,

comprehensive and sustained monitoring data, with the final goal to support management of natural

resources and decision making in an increasingly complex and environmentally stressed world. It is

of increasing importance in a wide variety of areas, including agriculture, food production and

processing, forestry, disaster management, ecosystem and biodiversity monitoring, environmental

protection.

On the more local scale, Serbia heavily relies on its agricultural production and exploitation of

natural resources. Since the production methods and used techniques mainly employ traditional

approaches there is plenty of room for improvement. This particularly holds for application of

biosensing technology and state-of-the-art concepts backed up with ICT solutions such as wireless

sensor networks, low cost sensing devices and remote sensing. The introduction of this framework in

Serbia could lead to faster economic development, better and more intelligent utilization of the

resources, high-quality food production and protection of the environment.

BioSense Center was established at the University of Novi Sad with the mission to coordinate, focus

and advance research in biosensing through introduction and promotion of state-of-the-art ICT

solutions in agriculture, ecology, environmental protection and forestry.

The vision of the BioSense Center was to become an internationally recognized

multidisciplinary research center and a key provider of advanced ICT solutions for acquisition

and processing of data for natural resource management. To that end, the BioSense formulated

research agenda and 3-year development strategy, and performed gap analysis.

Based on them, the BioSense proposed the project InnoSense whose main objective was to foster

its future development. The project aimed to strengthen both the research and innovation

capacities of the Center, to support the synergies within, and, in the end, to contribute to the

reduction of the brain-drain, advance of the infrastructure (both research and management)

and to increase the eco-innovation performance of the Center. The identified strengths of the

BioSense Center, combined with the reinforcement activities proposed in this Project, were foreseen

to help in overcoming the identified weaknesses, exploit benefits from recognized opportunities and

mitigate the threats.

The specific objectives of the Project were defined as follows:

• Reinforcement of the research potential of the BioSense,

• Reinforcement of the IPR, innovation and business capacity of the BioSense Institute,

• Promotion of closer S&T cooperation between Europe and WBC,

• Support to future participation in Horizon 2020 programme and in other research co-funded

by industry or EU,

• Boost to prospective involvement in co-funded research from industry and EU,

• Dissemination of the Project results and influence on the governmental policies in agriculture,

environmental protection, water management, disaster management, nature conservation and

spatial planning,

• Sustainable development of the BioSense Institute.



In order to achieve the objectives, we designed the Action Plan based on seven strongly interrelated

work packages (WP1-WP7) within a period of 42 months, namely:

1. Management of the Project

2. Employment of new experts

3. Equipment purchase

4. Intellectual Property and Innovation Capacity Building

5. Secondments

6. Dissemination and networking

7. Ex-post evaluation

Start WP 6

WP 2

WP 1

WP 3 WP 5

Management

of the Project

Secondments

Dissemination

and networking

Equipment

purchase

Employment of new

researchers

WP 4IP and

Innovation

EndWP 7Ex-post

evaluation

Fig. 1: InnoSense work packages

InnoSense was a mono-applicant proposal, i.e. the BioSense was the only beneficiary. However, the

Project consortium gathered a strong team of EU partnering institutions carefully chosen to provide

missing or strengthen existing research capacities of the BioSense. They took part in the trainings,

placements, networking, and dissemination activities of the Project. Namely, the consortium

comprised the following institutions:

Institute of Sensor and Actuator Systems, TU Vienna, Austria, was chosen since it presents one

of the strongest European research centers for development and application of LTCC technology

since it possesses a great expertise in the field of sensor design, as well as in integrated sensing and

actuating devices, microfluidics, biochips and electronic packaging.

The collaboration with Institute of Microwave Systems, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and

Information Technology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany foreseen in the Project

aimed at reinforcement of several research aspects of the BioSense, particularly in the design of



specific soil-moisture sensors for agricultural and environmental applications, that need to be

compact in size, low-consumption and low-priced.

Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece, (AUA) was carefully chosen due to its

expertise in the application of modern technologies to agriculture and natural resources in the form of

precision agriculture, which is one of the main focal points of BioSense.

Ghent University, Belgium, was included as the EU project partner for their vast experience in

image processing, remote sensing, and geographic information systems as well as in the field of

hyperspectral imaging.

One of the leading European institutions that encompasses both the technological and economic

aspects of agro-industry and management of natural resources is the Institute of Food and Resource

Economics, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. The

Institute possesses great experience in precision farming and development of new agro-industrial

technologies and products, all of great interest to the BioSense.

GIS and Remote Sensing Laboratory (LAST) at Doñana Biological Station, Spain, is a

multidisciplinary research institute with a strong focus on biodiversity and GIS and RS for

automatized monitoring of natural processes, and thus it was chosen as EU partner.

During the second reporting period of the Project, the InnoSense consortium was expanded by five

new partners - Technical University Darmstadt, Germany, University of Perugia, Italy, South

Westphalia University of Applied Sciences, Germany, National Center for Scientific Research

“Demokritos”, Greece, and University of Pavia, Italy, which opened up possibilities for acquiring

new knowledge and skills by the BioSense personnel. They were added to consortium with the aim

to transfer the knowledge to the BioSense staff in the field of sensing technologies, in particular

sensors based on nanostructures and sensors operating at microwave frequencies.



3. Description of the main S&T results/foregrounds

The project InnoSense represents a tremendous success, which boosted the development of the

BioSense and marked it as an internationally recognized research institute. Besides research

excellence in ICT applications in biosystems, the BioSense is recognized for a wide range of

services offering to stakeholders, entrepreneurial culture which encourages realization of market-

oriented solutions, impressive network of partners, and participation in a number of projects,

particularly those from H2020 calls. Moreover, the BioSense has been recognized as a major

national player in the field of ICT applications in agriculture and related biosystems.

The clear indicator of the Project success is the fact that during the Project execution the BioSense

evolved to an independent institution BioSensе Institute - Research Institute for Information

Technologies in Biosystems. As stated previously, the Project and the achieved results represented a

genuine quantum leap and consequently paved the way for the project ANTARES that was

granted to the BioSense Centre within prestigious Horizon 2020 Teaming Programme, which

ultimately led to foundation of a new institution. At the moment, the BioSense is taking part in phase

II of the Teaming call as a candidate for European Centre of Excellence that will be funded by the

European Commission.

Fig. 2 presents Biosense’s current situation at a glance and shows its outstanding potential in

research capacities, services offered to industry and government sector, its numerous international

projects and wide network at national, regional, European level and beyond. The presented structure

and accomplishments are at the same time clear evidence of the success of InnoSense which

actually made this progress possible. We note that during the Project execution, the BioSense

directed its vision and capacities more towards ICT applications in agrifood and related biosystems,

which is illustrated in Fig. 3.

Since InnoSense is not scientific project per se, but a project from FP7-REGPOT call whose aim was

to upgrade research potential by providing support in the form of investment, staff, networking or

advice, we will present in the following the main results related to the reinforcement of the

BioSense’s capacities. The results will be presented in relation to the work packages of the Project.

3.1 Work package 2 – Employment of new experts

The main goal of the activities of WP2 was twofold - to employ researchers with high scientific

expertise and to cover all major scientific fields of interest with their expertise. Through a careful and

judicious selection process, the BioSense was reinforced by 11 experts covering all scientific

fields of the interest, namely nano and microelectronics, signal processing and knowledge

discovery, remote sensing, and biosystems, Fig. 4. In that manner, the initial plan to employ three

experts and one technician was outperformed to a significant degree.

According to their expertise the hired people have been evenly distributed among major research

groups. Namely, four hired experts have been affiliated to Nano and microelectronics group and four

to Signal processing and knowledge discovery group, and two experts to Remote sensing and GIS

(geographic information system) group. In addition, the human capacity has been enhanced by an

expert in the field of biological sciences.

Besides their research activities, the hired people have invested a significant effort to support full

exploitation of the new equipment, in particular through the organization of the relevant trainings and

introduction of new methods and practices in the laboratory.



Fig. 2: BioSense Institute – current situation.



Fig. 3: BioSense vision for the agriculture of the future.

Dragana Bajović

Dušan Jakovetić

Vladan Minić

Mališa Marijan

Signal Processing and Knowledge

Discovery

Jovan Matović

Georges Dubourg

Georgios Niarchos

Goran Kitić

Nano and Microelectonics

Dimitrios Fotakis

Dušan Sakulski

Remote Sensing and GIS

Antonio Ricarte Sabater

Ecology

PhD

MSc

Fig. 4: The experts hired through the project InnoSense

Also, the experts have transferred knowledge to other personnel of the BioSense Institute, and

particularly important is their support to young researchers. Finally, they have disseminated the

excellence of the BioSense Institute at various occasions and have contributed to the business

development facility through participation in the project proposals preparation.

Therefore, WP2 activities have provided a strong multidisciplinary research team whose capabilities

and expertise gave a strong stimulus to the research potential of the institute.

As a particular success of BioSense beyond the lifetime of the project, we emphasize that 8 out of 11

people hired through InnoSense project, remained at BioSense after their contracts within

InnoSense project were concluded. Due to their significant scientific results, they have become a

members of the permanent staff at BioSense and take part in different projects including those

funded from the national, provincial and H2020 calls, thus contributing to the research potential of

the Institute.

In the following, a short presentation of the hired people will be given.



Jovan Matović is a principal scientist at the BioSense with a strong expertise

in micro- and nano-technology and over 20 years of experience. He gained

work experience in Institute of Nuclear Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia and the

Institute for Chemistry, Technology and Metallurgy, Dep. of Microelectronic

Technologies and Single Crystals, Serbia where he conducted research in

design of MEMS devices. He conducted research in nano/microsystem

technologies, mechatronics and biophysics as a research fellow at Integrated

Microsystems Austria GmbH, Austria from 2004 to 2007. Before he joined

the BioSense he did research in self-organized, biomimetic, and 2-D nanostructures for application in

photonics, energy harvesting, and nanomedicine at Vienna University of Technology, Institute for

Sensors and Actuators Systems, Austria. Dr Matović has published over 50 journal and conference

papers as well as chapters in three scientific books. He holds two patent applications for MEMS

devices for spacecraft thermal control and he won award in biomedical sensors

at Cleveland Clinic, USA, 2012. From 2010 he has served as EU Expert-evaluator in the field of

sensors and nano-technology. He has supervised PhD students and has vast experience in laboratory

management and therefore he strongly contributes to the development of the BioSense.

Georgios Niarchos joined the BioSense in September 2014 as a researcher

with expertise in sensor design. He received his B.Sc (2006) from the Physics

Department and his M.Sc (2008) and Ph.D (2013) from the Department of

Informatics and Telecommunications of the National & Kapodistrian

University of Athens, Greece. His research focused on Piezoelectric Energy

harvesting from vibrations, combining both solid and flexible substrates to

create novel MEMS microgenerators for powering up small sensors. Dr

Niarchos has publised over 10 scientific papers related to different fields of

micro- and nano-electronics. His research interests include, but are not limited to: energy harvesting,

ZnO nanostructured materials, MEMS, sensors. In addition, dr Niarchos has experience in different

fabrication technology which contributes to development of the BioSense Laboratory and full

exploitation of new equipment.

Georges Dubourg joined the BioSense in September 2014 as a researcher with

expertise in sensor design. He received the engineer degree in electronics and

PhD degree in microelectronincs from the University of Sciences and

Technologies in Bordeaux in 2009 and 2012, respectively. His PhD studies

included the fabrication of organic microcantilevers, their characterization and

their potential application for bio/chemical sensors. Also, he introduced a new

activity in the laboratory concerning organic MEMS for biosensing

applications and acquired a strong background in organic MEMS fabrication.

His research interests are in the bio/chemical research application area and in

development of wireless and user-friendly innovative sensing microdevices for

agriculture and environmental applications. He has published more than 10

scientific papers mostly related to sensor development. Dr Dubourg has very strong technical skills

and experience in clean room processes such as photolithography, DRIE, RIE, wafer-bonding

process, spray-coating, shadow-masking process, metal deposition and patterning processes.

Goran Kitić received MSc degree from the University of Novi Sad in 2008 in

the field of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) devices and joined the

BioSense in November 2013. His tasks are to cooperate with researchers on

development of different sensors and devices, to further advance the equipment

capabilities of the BioSense as well as to ensure necessary support for the full

exploitation of new equipment. His research includes design of sensors

including microwave soil moisture sensors, milk quality sensors, and nitrogen



sensors. Because of the nature of his research work Goran Kitić developed experience in the field of

different fabrication technologies like LTCC, PCB, microfabrication, thin and thick film technology.

Thus, he possesses excellent abilities to provide the link between full capabilities of the technological

process and circuit-design efforts of the researchers.

Dušan Jakovetić has been with the BioSense since October 2013 at the

position of researcher with the expertise in signal processing. He obtained a

dipl. ing. degree from the School of Electrical Engineering, University of

Belgrade, Serbia, in August 2007, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and

computer engineering (ECE) from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh,

PA, and Instituto de Sistemas e Robótica (ISR), Instituto Superior Técnico

(IST), Lisbon, Portugal, in May 2013. From June to September 2013, he was

a postdoctoral researcher at IST. Dr. Jakovetić’s research interests and

expertise include convex optimization, statistical inference, and distributed algorithms for networked

systems. He has published 10 journal papers in the IEEE Transactions on Signal

Processing/Automatic Control, and 17 papers in international conferences. His main role is to

produce research on wireless sensor networks and wireless access networks, targeting applications in

environmental monitoring and protection, as well as in precision agriculture. More specifically, he

works on distributed in-network processing and distributed storage for wireless sensor networks, as

well as on distributed protocols for wireless access and machine-to-machine communications.

Dragana Bajović joined the BioSense in October 2013 as an expert in signal

and information processing in wireless sensor networks. She obtained her

engineering degree from the School of Electrical Engineering, University of

Belgrade, Serbia, in August 2007, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and

computer engineering (ECE) from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh,

PA, and Instituto de Sistemas e Robótica (ISR), Instituto Superior Técnico

(IST), Lisbon, Portugal, in May 2013. From June to September 2013, she

was a postdoctoral researcher at IST. Dr. Bajović’s research interests are in

the general area of distributed inference, and her expertise includes

distributed detection and estimation algorithms, products of random matrices, and large deviations

analysis. She has published four journal papers in the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, and

eleven papers in international conferences. Dr. Bajović works on information processing algorithms

in sensor networks, with an emphasis on large-scale systems and distributed solutions.

Vladan Minic joined the BioSense in March 2015 as an expert in the field of

Wireless Sensor Networks and image processing. He received MSc degree

from the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad. His activities

include data collection and maintenance of Wireless Sensor Networks and

meteorological stations, as well as maintenance of BioSense GIS server and

other services necessary for operation at BioSense.

Mališa Marijan received the Dipl. Ing. degree in electrical engineering from

the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in

electrical engineering from University of Rochester, NY in 2005, 2008, and

2012, respectively. He was a postdoctoral research associate under the Lady

Davis Fellowship at Technion, Haifa in 2012. In October 2013, he joined the

BioSense as an expert in coding theory. His research is in the area of data

acquisition (A/D converters, image sensors, and sensor networks) and related

signal processing and reconstruction techniques (compressed sensing,

mathematical optimization, and error-correction). As a part of BioSense



research team, his work has been toward improving accuracy and reliability of measurements from

sensors involving sigma-delta (ΣΔ) type analog to digital converters (ADCs).

Dimitrios Fotakis has been working at the Biosense since January 2014 as

an experienced researcher in the field of geoinformatics with specific

expertize in natural resources management. He holds an interdisciplinary PhD

degree combining Natural resources and Operational research. After

obtaining a Bachelor degree on Forestry in 2000 he was working in various

projects as practitioner and forest manager in Greece until 2103 combining

research and working experience. He received his MSc in Geoinformatics

with emphasis on hydrology modelling in 2003, and his PhD in 2009 from

the Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH). He has 10 publications in

International Journals (h-index: 5), he is a member of journal editorial boards, a reviewer in several

international journals and a member of various European networks. His current research interests are:

natural resources management and ICTs in a variety of interrelated areas.

Dusan Sakulski joined the BioSense in December 2014 as an expert in the

field of environmental/water/disaster risk management, data mining and

data processing, and integrated information systems design and

development. He received PhD thesis in the field of Environmental and

Disaster Risk, from University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), Faculty of

Engineering, Johannesburg, South Africa. His research activities include

enhancement of spatial and temporal data monitoring, integration, and

management, and development of application strategies based on data

processing for various BIO-fields scenarios.

Antonio Ricarte Sabater was with the BioSense since March 2014 to

December 2014 as an expert in the field of insect biodiversity and

conservation of habitats. Dr Ricarte received his PhD degree from the

University of Alicante, Spain in 2008. Dr Ricarte has participated in 16

research projects and been awarded 2 research grants within the EU

infrastructure project ExpeER. He has authored over 40 publications and

undertook research in institutions from different countries such as Serbia,

the UK and Mexico. Dr Ricarte’s role in the BioSense was also to provide

biological advice, especially in projects concerning agricultural systems and

nature protection.

The published scientific results represent the most tangible evidence of the research excellence and

in that sense the hired experts have had a very successful publication rate. Namely, Table 1 shows

the list of the published papers and it can be seen that the total number of the published papers equals

36, 18 of which are journal papers, 15 conference papers, and 3 invited talks. Taken into

consideration that the average duration of the employment was 22,6 months within the Project, the

publication rate represents a clear indicator of the success. We note that Table 1 lists only the papers

published by the hired people, and not all papers which resulted from InnoSense project.

Another important marker of the research excellence is the citation of the papers. Although the

papers have been recently published, in 2014 and 2015, and thus their impact might not be properly

estimated, some of the papers have received a considerable attention. The total number of the

citations for the all papers exceeds 110, which indicates that the published results have a strong

impact on the academic society.

To further illustrate the success of the research activities of the hired people and their contribution to

the BioSense Institute, we present some of the devices developed by them. Fig. 5a shows two

prototypes, one analogue and another digital, of the device for somatic cell count in the cow milk.



Namely, the increased number of somatic cells indicates presence of mastitis which represents the

largest cost to the dairy industry since contaminated milk has to be instantly poured out and infected

cows medically treated.

Table 1: List of publication realized by the hired people

Journal papers

1. Nikola Bednar, Jovan Matović, Goran Stojanović, Properties of surface dielectric barrier discharge

plasma generator for fabrication of nanomaterials, Journal of Electrostatics, Volume 71, Issue 6, pp.

1068–1075 December 2013

2. Michael Kellner, Philip Radovanovic, Jovan Matovic, Robert Liska, Novel cross-linkers for

asymmetric poly-AMPS-based proton exchange membranes for fuel cells, Designed Monomers and

Polymers, Volume 17, Issue 4, pp. 372-379, 2014.

3. Jakovetić D.: Convergence Rates of Distributed Nesterov-like Gradient Methods on Random

Networks, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 2014, Vol. 62, No 4, pp. 868-882.

4. Ricarte A, Rotheray G, Lyszkowski R, Hancock E, Hewitt S, Watt K, Horsfield D, Macgowan I,

The syrphids of Serra do Courel, Northern Spain and description of a new Cheilosia Meigen species

(Diptera: Syrphidae), Zootaxa, 2014 May 1;3793:401-22.

5. Jakovetić D.: Fast distributed gradient methods, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2014,

Vol. 59, No 5, pp. 1131-1146.

6. Fotakis, D., Sidiropoulos, E., Loukas, A, Integration of a Hydrological Model within a

Geographical Information System: Application to a Forest Watershed, Water 2014, 6(3), 500-516.

7. Myronidis D., Fotakis D, Utilizing 3D solid modeling tools for simplified designing of a small

concrete Gravity Dam, International Journal of Sustainable Agricultural Management and

Informatics, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 351-357, 2015.

8. E. Sidiropoulos, D. Fotakis, Spatial optimization: An indispensable tool for development, South-

Eastern European Journal of Earth Observation and Geomatics, vol. 4 pp. 81-91, 2015.

9. Nedeljković Z., Ačanski J., Đan M., Obreht D., Ricarte A. and Vujić A: An integrated approach to

delimiting species borders in the Syrphidae (Diptera), with description of two species of

Chrysotoxum Meigen. Contributions to Zoology, 84 (4) 285-304, 2015.

10. Jakovetić D.: Linear Convergence Rate of a Class of Distributed Augmented Lagrangian

Algorithms , IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2015, Vol. 60, No 4, pp. 922-936.

11. Jakovetić D., Bajović D., Vukobratović D., Crnojević V.: Cooperative Slotted ALOHA for Multi

Base Station Systems, IEEE Transactions on Communications, 2015, Vol. 63, No 4, pp. 1443-1456.

12. Antić B., Minić V., Tsioukas V.: Activities to Promote Earth Observation in the Balkan States,

South-Eastern European Journal of Earth Observation and Geomatics, 2015, Vol. 4, No 1, pp. 17-24

13. Dimitrios Fotakis, Multi-objective spatial forest planning using self-organization, Ecological

Informatics, Volume 29, Part 1, pp. 1–5, September 2015.

14. Kazana V., Kazaklis A., Stamatiou C., Koutsona P., Boutsimea A., Fotakis D, SWOT analysis for

sustainable forest policy and management: a Greek case study, Int. J. Information and Decision

Sciences, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 32-50, 2015.

15. Markovic V., Vasiljevic Dj., Jovanovic T., Lukic T., Vujicic M., Kovacevic M., Ristic Z., Markovic

S., Ristanovic B., Sakulski D, The Effect of Natural and Human-Induced Habitat Conditions on

Number of Roe Deer - Case Study of Vojvodina Serbia, Acta Geographica Slovenica, January 2016.

16. Janković N., Niarchos G., Crnojević-Bengin V.: Compact UWB bandpass filter based on grounded

square patch resonator, Electronics Letters, 2016, Vol. 52, No 5, pp. 372-374.

17. Markov Z, Nedeljković Z, Ricarte A, Vujić A, Jovičić S, Józan Z, Mudri-Stojnić S, Radenković S,

Ćetković A, Bee (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) and hoverfly (Diptera: Syrphidae) pollinators in

Pannonian habitats of Serbia, with a description of a new Eumerus Meigen species (Syrphidae),

Zootaxa. 2016 Aug 18;4154(1):27-50.

18. Lukic T., Maric P., Hrnjak I., Gavrilov M., Mladjan D., Zorn M., Komac B., Milosevic Z.,

Markovic S., Sakulski D., Jordaan A., Djordjevic J., Pavic D., Stojsavljevic R, Forest Fire Analysis

and Classification - Based on Serbian Case Study, Acta Geographica Slovenica, 57(1):51–63,

January 2017.

19.



Invited talks

1. Bajović D., Jakovetić D., Vukobratović D., Crnojević V.: Slotted ALOHA for Networked Base

Stations: Algorithms and Performance, 20. European Wireless Conference, Barcelona, Spain, 14-16

May, 2014.

2. D. Jakovetic, Distributed optimization in multi-agent systems, LARSYS Summer School, Instituto

Superior Tecnico, Lisbon, Portugal, 2014.

3. J. Matovic, "Nanotechnology in sensors for environmental monitoring", invited talk IBSC

conference 2014 Phuket, Thailand

Conference papers

1. B. Will, V. Crnojević Bengin, G. Kitić: „Microwave Soil Moisture Sensors,“ Proceedings of the

43rd European Microwave Conference EuMA 2013, Nuremberg, Germany, 7-10. October 2013.

2. Bajović D., Jakovetić D., Vukobratović D., Crnojević V.: Slotted ALOHA for Networked Base

Stations, 14. IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Sydney: IEEE, 10-14 June,

2014.

3. Jakovetić D., Bajović D., Vukobratović D., Crnojević V.: Slotted ALOHA for Networked Base

Stations with Spatial and Temporal Diversity, 4. IEEE International Symposium on Information

Theory ISIT, Honolulu: IEEE, 29 June -4 July, 2014

4. Dubourg G., Žlebič Č., Matović J., Crnojević-Bengin V.: One-Step Patterning of a Flexible

Piezoresistive MEMS Sensor by 3D Direct Laser Writing, IEEE-NEMS, Xi’an: IEEE, 7-11 April,

2015, pp. 553-556

5. Jakovetić D., Minja A., Bajović D., Vukobratović D.: Distributed Storage Allocation for

Neighborhoodbased Data Access, IEEE Information Theory Workshop, ITW Jerusalem 2015, April

26 – May 1, 2015.

6. Jakovetić D., Bajović D., Vukobratović D.: Distributed Estimation of Sparse User Activity for

Multi-base Station On-Off Random Access, 2015 IEEE International Conference on

Communication Workshop (ICCW), 8-12 June 2015, DOI: 10.1109/ICCW.2015.7247488

7. Dubourg G., Marjanović S., Žlebič Č., Matović J., Crnojević-Bengin V.: 3D laser writing in-line

process for the rapid fabrication of flexible electronic devices, 10. TechConnect World Innovation

Conference, Washington, DC, 2015, pp. 131-134

8. Jakovetić D., Bajović D., Krejić N., Krklec Jerinkić N.: Distributed Gradient Methods with Variable

Number of Working Nodes, 22nd International Symposium on Mathematical Programming,

Pittsburg USA, July 2015.

9. Krejić N., Jakovetić D., Bajović D., Krklec Jerinkić N.: A Newton-Like Method for Distributed

Optimization, 22nd International Symposium on Mathematical Programming, Pittsburg USA, July

2015.

10. Krklec Jerinkić N., Krejić N., Bajović D., Jakovetić D.: Variable Sample Line Search Method for

Distributed Optimization, 22nd International Symposium on Mathematical Programming, Pittsburg

USA, July 2015.

11. Niarchos G., Dubourg G., Afroudakis G., Tsouti V., Makarona E., Matovic J., Crnojević-Bengin V.,

Tsamis C.: Low-cost paper-based humidity sensor based on ZnO nanoparticles, 29. Eurosensors,

Freiburg, Germany, 2015

12. Dubourg G., Kojić S., Matović J., Crnojević-Bengin V.: Rapid fabrication of paperbased MEMS

strain sensor using a laser micromachining process, 12. Micro and Nano Engineering, Hague, 2015

13. Myronidis D., Fotakis D., Sgouropoulou K., Stathis, D, Checking a culvert suitability for flood

wave routing within the framework of the EU flood directive, 7th International Conference on

Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture, Food and Environment, 2015.

14. S. Marjanović, G. Kitić, J. Matović, N. Cselyuszka, V. Crnojević Benign: „Towards a New

Generation of Microfluidic Devices Without Microfluidic Channels,“ 12th International

Conference on Advanced Technologies, Systems and Services in Telecommunications TELSIKS

2015, Niš, Serbia, 14-17. October 2015.

15. Dubourg G., Savić S., Niarchos G., Kitić G., Ivetić T., Doumbia M., Janković N., Crnojević-Bengin

V., Radović M.: Characterisation of Screen-printed TiO2 Nanoparticles on Flexible Substrate for

Humidity Sensing, 1. The International Bioscience Conference and the 6th International PSU –

UNS Bioscience Conference IBSC 2016, Novi Sad, 19-21 September, 2016



(a) (b)

(c)

Fig. 5: Some of the devices developed by the hired people: (a) Milk quality monitoring device, (b)

NDVI device for plants’ health monitoring, (c) device (b) awarded at the 60th International Fair of

Technical Achievements.

Fig. 5b shows the prototype of the NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) device that is

used for plant’s health monitoring. By analysis of plants spectra one can determine if the plant

suffers from the lack of water, nutrients, photosynthetically active radiation and much more

parameters that are important for proper growth and development of the plant. This device also won

Special award "Step into the future" at the 60th International Fair of Technical Achievements in

Belgrade, Serbia, Fig. 5c.

As stated previously, the hired people contributed to the BioSense in other means including full

support to exploitation of the new equipment, organization of the relevant trainings, introduction of

new methods and practices in the laboratory, dissemination, project proposals preparation, and

knowledge-transfer.

3.2 Work package 3 - Equipment purchase

Further improvement of the research capacities has been achieved through the equipment purchase.

The purchased equipment is used to complement and upgrade the existing equipment at the



BioSense. Investments were primarily directed towards Nano and microelectronics laboratory and an

investment was made into LTCC facility which is emerging and highly promising new

technology in environmental sensor design. Since LTCC equipment needed to be placed in a clean

room, within the Project a purchase and installation of the clean room facility of the appropriate size

and class was also foreseen. Additional pieces of equipment aimed at characterization of the micro-

and nanoelectronics circuits were purchased. The list of these equipment is given in Table 2, whilst

the clean room with LTCC and other facilities is shown in Fig. 6a.

The importance of this sophisticated and unique in the region laboratory, with the potential to

produce novel scientific results, was also recognized by the authorities and Fig. 6b shows the

moments from the opening ceremony of the laboratory with the Provincial Prime Minister Bojan

Pajtic.

The fabrication capabilities of Nano and microelectronics laboratory of the BioSense Institute now

include:

Infrastructure:

o Clean room 1 – photolithography, nano and MEMS, class ISO 5 / ISO 7 (ISO

146441), DI water Grade 1 (ISO 3696), nitrogen, argon and air class ISO 5, vacuum;

o Clean room 2 – thin and thick films Class ISO 5 / ISO 7, DI water Grade 3 (technical

water), nitrogen and air class ISO 5, vacuum;

o Clean room 3 – nano and micro manufacturing, characterization & measurement,

optical laboratory, class ISO 8, nitrogen and air class ISO 5, vacuum;

LTCC (Low Temperature Cofired Ceramics) technology with complete prototyping line

including laser cutting.

Photolithography processes with 1µm line resolution limit.

Thin films technologies: thermal evaporation of inorganic and organic layers; e-gun

evaporation in neutral or reactive environment; Layer-by-Layer deposition of

polyelectrolytes; electrodepositing.

Thick films technologies: screen printing; spin coating of films.

Micromachining processes in silicon, glass and ceramics.

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) which can be fabricated using thin/thick film

deposition, photolithography, electroplating, laser machining, and inkjet printing.

Nano-manufacturing processes, particularly connected to bionics and self-organized

nanostructures.

Chemical and electrochemical section.

Optical laboratory section with optical tables and accessories.

Electronic and mechanical workshop serve as units for assembling sensor prototypes,

microwave circuits and supporting electronics, and manufacturing of a special experimental

apparatus, acoustic devices, and housing for sensors.

The characterization capabilities now include:

Optical inspection in UV, visible and NIR spectra and dimension control up to 1 µm level

Electron microscopy, with included EDX analysis and surface analysis

Spectroscopic analysis in UV, visible and IR spectra

Thin film characterization with contact and contactless methods



Semiconductor analysis and Hall measurements with installed wafer probe station

RF and microwave measurements

X-ray fluorescence

Mass spectroscopy

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy

Research facilities and equipment have been further upgraded with autonomous robots and all-

terrain vehicle equipped with hyperspectral cameras and soil probes as well as XRF analyser

that provides fast, non-destructive elemental analysis of the soil. The new facilities enable a

detailed soil mapping in terms of its parameters providing a wide range of soil condition data, which

can be further processed so as to provide a valuable information for end-users.

In this manner, the BioSense Institute is set as a multidisciplinary research institute with the

highest potential to produce novel scientific results for application in agriculture and

environmental monitoring.

Fig. 7 shows some pieces of the equipment, whilst the list is given in Table 3.

Table 2: List of purchased equipment related to LTCC fabrication facility and characterization

LTCC fabrication facility

LTCC conductor screen printer EKRA M2H with MOPS with accessories: Spin coater Laurel WS-650Mz-

23NPP, UV exposition and calibration VARIOCOP S 67 x 77 cm - S 1500, Linear CNC mill SyiL X5 PLUS,

CNC machine Bernardo Proficentre 700 BQV, and Mask Cleaner Sonorex Super Ultrasonic Bath RK 514 BH

LTCC sheet dryers Memmert UN300, 32 litre, 2 pieces

General purpose high-accuracy (5 μm) Mask Alignment & Exposure System MDA-400M, MIDAS SYSTEM

CO. Ltd

LTCC uniaxial laminator CARVER Auto Series Autofour/20-NE press

Clean room for LTCC facility (designed according to specifications)

LTCC furnace for firing in the argon and nitrogen atmosphere Nabatherm L 9/11/SKM with controller P330

and accessories

Laser marking system Rofin-Sinar CombiLine advanced WT and Powerline D-100

Characterization equipment for micro- and nanoelectronics

Hitachi Tabletop Electron Microscope TM 3030 with modules for profilometry and chemical analysis

Vector Network Analyser Agilent E5071C-280 with a standard mechanical calibraiton kit and accessories

UV/VIS spectrometer with 2 beams

Fast Fourier transform infrared spectrometer



(a)

(b)

Fig. 6: Upgraded BioSense laboratory and equipment: (a) Clean room with LTCC and other

facilities, (b) Provincial PM Bojan Pajtic in the Biosense laboratory.



(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 7: (a) Hyperspectral imaging cameras MQ022HG-IM-SM5x5-NIR, (b) XRF- X-ray DP-2000-

CX-E-EN-EN-AP, (c) all-terrain vehicle (ATV) BRP-CAN AM equipped with soil probe, (d)

unmanned ground vehicle CLEARPATH Husky.

Table 3: List of the purchased equipment for non-destructive analysis of the soil.

Hyperspectral imaging system including field spectrometer and line hyperspectral camera

Hyperspectral line imaging cameras SP-HS-CL-30-V10E-Std 400-1000 nm and SP-NIR-VLNIR-CL-100-

N17E 700-1900 nm

Hyperspectral matrix imaging camera MQ022HG-IM-SM5x5-NIR

Server Lenovo X3850X6 Intel XEON E7-4820

Storage NETAPP E2700-R6

Unmanned ground vehicle for agricultural sensing

Unmanned ground vehicle CLEARPATH Husky A200™ UGV Robot 2 pieces

XRF- X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy for UGV DP-2000-CX-E-EN-EN-AP

fabrication and characterization equipment for micro- and nanocircuits

Soil probe system

Soil probe EM-38 MK2 Geomatrix

All-terrain vehicle (ATV) BRP-CAN AM for soil probe

Accessories for ATV BRP-CAN AM



3.3 Work package 4 - Intellectual Property and Innovation Capacity Building

In order to fully exploit the research results of the BioSense, work package 4 was implemented

with the aim to establish a framework for the effective protection and management of IPR, to

develop a structured approach towards greater involvement of key stakeholders, to alter the mindset

of the researchers with respect to innovation and entrepreneurship, and to contribute to the

diversification of the income base of the BioSense.

To that end, the Innovation and Business Development Facility (IBD) was established within

InnoSense and 3 people were hired, namely:

Grigorios Chatzikostas has been employed as Innovation and Business

Development Manager. He has over 10 years of international experience in

fostering successful win-win research collaborations and partnerships between

industrial players, government organizations and leading academic institutions to

increase the rate of innovation and technology. His experience includes writing

successful proposals, carrying out contract negotiations and acting as coordinator on

a number of projects in the fields of Environmental Technologies and Introduction of Advanced

ICTs in agricultural clusters.

Maja Radisic has been employed as Innovation and Business Development

Assistant. She graduated at University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Sciences,

Department of Geography. Previously, she was working for several years in

tourism industry, with main duties in event organization and administration.

Currently, her main responsibilities within BioSense Institute are: business

administration assistance for the activities of WP4 including organization of

trainings, market research, organization of promotional activities, contribution in

the preparation of reports, proposal writing etc.

Milica Trajkovic has been employed as an Innovation and Business

Development Assistant. She graduated at the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of

Technical Sciences and obtained her M.Sc. degree in the area of Industrial

Engineering and Management. During her studies, she was active member of

student organization, where she was project leader of an international project and

Vice President for Public Relations. Currently, her main responsibilities within

the BioSense Institute are business administration assistance, organization of trainings and other

types of events, writing project proposals and project management assistance.

IBD facility, established owing to the project InnoSense, makes the BioSense a unique research

institution in the region. Moreover, Innovation and Business Development Facility has been

enlarged with 2 new staff members and matured into the Business Development Department

(BDD) of the BioSense Institute.

The BDD team has achieved a number of results and set a strong basis for further commercial

exploitation of the research results and transfer of the knowledge to the market.

Firstly, BDD invested a great effort to expand the existing network of partners and their

networking activities were successfully promoting the capacities of BioSense Institute to both

governmental as well as industrial partners, so the capacities for contracted research and strategic

advisory service. Business Development Facility has developed a user-friendly data base which

incorporates all important information about contacted partners, Fig. 8.

Therefore, research and innovation at BioSense is developed in a close interaction with farmers and

the agrifood sector, government bodies, entrepreneurs and business community, international

researchers, and citizens. We work together to create a new generation of open innovations which



will be readily used and which will bring benefits across the entire value-chain. As a meeting place

for all relevant stakeholders, we have established PA4ALL – the Living lab for precision

agriculture. This is the first living laboratory in Serbia and the first one in Europe to focus on

precision agriculture. PA4ALL takes full advantage of inter-sectoral cross-fertilization of ideas and

offers possibilities to test ideas and prototypes in the real-world setting. The range of services that are

offered to stakeholders are summarized at the BioSense web presentation, whose corresponding

screenshot is shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 8: Partner’s field of work

Fig. 9: Screenshot of the web presentation of the BioSense Living Lab.



Starting from August 2013, PA4ALL is a member of ENoLL, European Network of Living Labs.

We managed to attract a nucleus of stakeholders as members of PA4ALL including the regional

government, a huge agricultural company with state-of-the-art facilities and the region cluster of ICT

companies. PA4ALL was further enforced by our participation in the FRACTALS project, in the

course of which we recruited 300 end-users to validate ICT solutions from the agricultural sector.

The efforts of BDD team were also directed towards organization of the trainings with the aim to

encourage entrepreneurial spirit among researchers and shift their research work to be more

market and user-driven. Another significant aim of conducted trainings was to introduce all the

researchers with the Horizon2020 programme as well as with the importance of the Intellectual

Property protection and the benefits that this activity can provide.

Working closely with the BioSense researchers on the project proposal preparation, BDD has

significantly intensified participation of the BioSense staff in EU-funded calls, in particular in those

from H2020 programme. One of the flagship outcomes of the Project are 10 successful H2020

project proposals, with a 25% success rate. Table 4 gives a full list of the projects together with

their short description.

The project ANTARES represents an outstanding success of the BioSense which is a direct outcome

of the project InnoSense. Namely, the BioSense Institute has been tremendously reinforced

through the InnoSense, and as such has a huge potential to become a European leader in

research in ICT for agrifood and related biosystems. This has been confirmed through

ANTARES, which was granted to the BioSense in the prestigious H2020 Teaming call whose aim

is transformation of research institutions into European centres of excellence. At the moment,

the BioSense is participating in in phase II of the Teaming call as a candidate for European Centre of

Excellence that will be funded by European Commission. We note a specific contribution of BDD in

the preparation of the business plan of BioSense for the next 7 years, executed within ANTARES.

Table 4: List of H2020 projects granted to the BioSense

Project acronym Project name Shot description

ANTARES

Centre of

Excellence for

Advanced

Technologies in

Sustainable

Agriculture and

Food Security,

H2020-

WIDESPREAD-

2014 Teaming

ANTARES aims to evolve BioSense Institute, Novi Sad, Serbia, into

a European Centre of Excellence (CoE) for advanced technologies in

sustainable agriculture and food security. This endeavor is supported

by the participation of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science

and Technological Development (MESTD), the national research

authority who will provide both institutional and legislative expertise

as well as co-financing of 14 mil Euro. The participation of DLO,

the Netherlands, the leading European research institute for applied

and market-driven research in agriculture and food security,

currently involved in 250 FP7 projects, will secure that the know-

how and experience of highest European standards are transplanted

to Serbia.

SmartAKIS

European

Agricultural

Knowledge and

Innovation

Systems (AKIS)

towards

innovation-driven

research in Smart

Machines and

Systems

The main objective of the Smart-AKIS Thematic Network is to

foster the effective exchange between all relevant actors in the value

chain, communicate and disseminate direct applicable solutions to

close the research and innovation divide for the use of Smart

Machines and Systems (SFTs) in crop, livestock and forestry

production in Europe. Smart-AKIS will use a “Multi Actor

Approach”, including in the partnership researchers, extension

services, farmer organizations and industrial partners. Through

covering a wide range of the European AKIS typologies, Smart-

AKIS will leverage on their differences in order to better capture

their innovation capacities and processes in the field of SFTs.



KATANA

Emerging

industries as key

enablers for the

adoption of

advanced

technologies in

the agrifood

sector

KATANA supports European SMEs in the agrifood value chain to

simultaneously access knowledge, technology, capital and markets

in order to respond to the global competitive environment.

KATANA aims to provide this access to companies by leveraging

upon the multiplier potential of cross-border/cross-sectoral

collaboration and the systemic approach which homogenizes

services towards the overall aim to place new products/ services in

the market.

INNO-4-

AGRIFOOD

Capitalising the

full potential of

on-line

collaboration for

SMEs innovation

support in the

Agri-Food

ecosystem

INNO-4-AGRIFOOD will deliver a new generation of innovation

support services that will assist European SMEs across the vast Agri-

food ecosystem to create value from on-line collaboration for

innovation, access a broader range of potential innovation partners

beyond their national and sectoral borders and timely mobilise them

to seize opportunities to launch concrete innovation projects. INNO-

4-AGRIFOOD services will be provided by properly qualified and

well-trained innovation support specialists and appropriately escalate

to respond to the diverse needs and characteristics of agri-food

SMEs. They will be platform-independent and supported by a suite

of smart ICT tools based on well-established and mainstream web

technologies.

IoF2020 Internet of Food

and Farm 2020

For the first time, DG Connect and DG Agri jointly finance the

30mEuros IoF2020 H2020 project (Internet of Things in the

Agrifood Domain), where BioSense is a core partner and WP

Leader, while our strategic partner DLO, the Netherlands, is the

coordinator. IoF2020 is dedicated to accelerate adoption of IoT for

securing sufficient, safe and healthy food and to strengthen

competitiveness of farming and food chains in Europe. It will

consolidate Europe’s leading position in the global IoT industry by

fostering a symbiotic ecosystem of farmers, food industry,

technology providers and research institutes. The IoF2020 brings

tgoether a consortium of 73 European partners includung

multinational companies like Philips and ST Microelectronics.

SKIN

Short supply

chain Knowledge

and Innovation

Network

SKIN is an initiative of 20 partners in 14 countries in the area of

Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs), which will systematise and

bring knowledge to practitioners, promote collaboration within a

demand-driven innovation logic and provide inputs to policymaking

through links to the EIP-AGRI. SKIN will build and animate a

community of about 500 stakeholders, with the strategic objective of

setting up, at the conclusion of the project, a European association

permanently working for the improvement of SFSCs efficiency and

for the benefit of stakeholders and growth in the sector.

AgriDemo F2F

Building an

interactive

AgriDemo-Hub

community:

enhancing farmer

to farmer learning

The overall aim of AgriDemo-F2F is to enhance peer-to-peer

learning within the commercial farming community. The project will

utilize the experience of different actors and involve practitioner

partners throughout the project to deepen understanding of effective

on farm demonstration activities (multi-actor approach).

eLTER

European Long-

Term Ecosystem

and socio-

ecological

Research

Infrastructure

A collective effort is needed to create the environmental research

infrastructure for answering pressing questions in a world of rapid

social, economic and environmental change. The overall aim of the

eLTER project is to advance the European network of Long-Term

Ecosystem Research sites and socio-ecological research platforms to

provide highest quality services for multiple use of a distributed



research infrastructure.

Advance_eLTER

Advancing the

European Long-

Term Ecosystem,

critical zone and

socio-ecological

Research

Infrastructure

towards ESFRI

Advance_eLTER marks an important step in building the distributed

European Research Infrastructure of Long-Term Ecosystem

Research sites and socio-ecological research platforms (eLTER RI)

to provide highest quality data and services complementary to the

European and global environmental RIs. Building upon the

partnership between BioSense and ILTER, the project will conduct

important conceptual work and preparatory steps towards enabling

European-scale investigation of the “Critical Zone”, major

ecosystems and socioecological systems, targeted at supporting

knowledge-based decision making at various levels concerning

ecosystem services and biodiversity.

EUDAT EUDAT2020

EUDAT2020 brings together a unique consortium of e-infrastructure

providers, research infrastructure operators, and researchers from a

wide range of scientific disciplines under several of the ESFRI

themes, working together to address the new data challenge. In most

research communities, there is a growing awareness that the “rising

tide of data” will require new approaches to data management and

that data preservation, access and sharing should be supported in a

much better way. Data, and a fortiori Big Data, is a cross-cutting

issue touching all research infrastructures. EUDAT2020’s vision is

to enable European researchers and practitioners from any research

discipline to preserve, find, access, and process data in a trusted

environment, as part of a Collaborative Data Infrastructure (CDI)

conceived as a network of collaborating, cooperating centers,

combining the richness of numerous community-specific data

repositories with the permanence and persistence of some of

Europe’s largest scientific data centers

Expansion and diversification of the network of partners and significant results provided an increased

interest of industry for the BioSense research and activities. Beside leading national agricultural

companies including MK group and Delta Agrar, world leading companies such as Syngenta has

shown interest in our activities and therefore we are intensively working on the ideas for joint

projects.

Namely, Syngenta’s global competition Syngenta Crop Challenge, in which the BioSense team

won 4th place, drew a specific attention to us. In November 2015, Syngenta released the call for

Crop Challenge. It had a huge dataset at the disposal, which included weather, yield and soil

characteristics at its farms in the US. The company decided to share the data with the community and

get the answer to the question of seed selection. Competitors needed to develop an algorithm for

choosing 5 out of 180 soybean varieties that should be planted on the Evaluation Farm to

maximize yield and minimize risk.

The BioSense offered a solution that is based on voting and Portfolio Optimization Theory, i.e. yield

at the Evaluation farm was predicted for each seed variety based on votes of the farms from the

training dataset and afterwards processed using Portfolio Optimization Theory.

Out of 500 applications and 30 teams that successfully submitted the solution, BioSense managed to

get into the finals along with 5 other teams from MIT, Stanford and other universities and

companies. In this extremely competitive contest, the BioSense team comprising our young

researchers won 4th place.

Also, the BioSense Institute has remained a strong partner to the local and provincial

government in the realization of their strategies and policies. Namely, the Provincial Government



recognized the reinforced potential of the BioSense and recently commissioned the following

research projects to the BioSense:

Aflatoxin – farm-to-table, aflatoxin monitoring through the whole food production chain,

Prototype development of the device for somatic cells count of raw milk

Development of low-cost microfluidics sensor to monitor algae chlorophyll in surface

waters

Development of device for mapping and measurement of nitrogen as the most important

parameter for sustainable agriculture

Sensing technologies for integrating monitoring of agricultural production

The aim of the projects is to develop low-cost and reliable devices and systems for the control of

food, environment, soil, and agricultural production.

These projects confirm the raising importance of the BioSense not only to provincial decision-

making, but also to overall progress of the agricultural production and environmental

protection on the national and regional level.

3.4 Work package 5 – Secondments

The third pillar of the BioSense research capacity reinforcement were secondments to the EU

partnering institutions. The secondments ensured knowledge transfer to staff from the

BioSense Institute in areas of expertise of the EU Project partners with emphasis on

interdisciplinary approach, adoption of best practices concerning deployment and utilization of

ICT systems, exposure of the BioSense staff to advanced working environments in the EU, and

their training in complementary skills.

The secondment activities were classified as:

Long-term secondments of duration of more than 10 days and usually of duration between

one and three months, and

Short-term secondments of duration less than 10 days.

Both long-term and short-term secondments involve visits in both directions between BioSense

Institute and EU partnering institutions. The main purpose of long-term secondments of the BioSense

Institute staff at EU partnering institutions is to foster the transfer of the know-how, to acquire deep

understanding and expert knowledge on a subject, to gain access to resources existing in the EU and

to facilitate coordination of future joint research. Short-term secondments are primarily used to

transfer knowledge by experts from EU partner institutions to BioSense staff. e.g., for EU partners

performing trainings in Serbia.

In total numbers over the entire project, there were 90 secondments, 51 of which were long-term,

whilst 39 were short-term secondments, Fig. 10. More precisely, 38 outgoing and 13 incoming long-

term secondments, and 19 outgoing and 20 incoming short-term secondments were realized.

Overall, secondment activity was one of the crucial factors of increase of the BioSense Institute staff

skills, research expertise and networking capacity during the last three years. All the secondments

were carefully planned during the course of the project execution so as to maximize the impact on

BioSense Institute development and in this sense, the WP5 success was one of the strong factors in

overall realization of InnoSense project and successful reinforcement of BioSense Institute.



Fig. 10: Secondments realized within InnoSense project.

3.5 Work package 6 - Dissemination and networking

Dissemination was performed on provincial, national, regional (WBC) and EU levels, and it targeted

the whole ecosystem of stakeholders including scientific community, provincial and national policy-

making bodies, SMEs, companies in agrifood, farmers, student and general population.

Besides raising awareness about the scientific results, one of the objectives of InnoSense was to

increase visibility of BioSense among general public to increase understanding of the

importance of ICT applications in biosystems and our activities and to offer a wide range of

services to stakeholders.

The networking was performed through the secondments and meetings at various occasions

including those with researchers from other institutions, as well as meetings with governmental,

industry, and SME representatives.

To that end, the BioSense performed an exhaustive dissemination plan that included high impact

conferences, networking meetings, workshops, media appearances, trainings, publications, as well as

promotional material and web presentation.

The intensive dissemination and networking activities resulted in an impressive network of

partners, gathering a wide range of stakeholders, primarily those residing in European countries, but

also those from Asia, Africa, and North and South America, Fig. 11.

Table 5 gives an overview of some of dissemination and networking activities in which the BioSense

staff participated.

Besides a number of scientific publications and participation in high-impact conferences, a

significant effort was invested in promotional, networking, and training activities.

Moreover, the activities of the BioSense attracted a great attention of media, which is a clear

evidence of raising awareness of the BioSense and the importance of its work whose results

affects not only research community, but also business world and society as a whole.

The media appearances were particularly intensified after the project ANTARES was commissioned

to the BioSense, which is a direct outcome of the InnoSense and the BioSense reinforcement. Fig. 12

shows excerpts of some media releases.

More details about dissemination activities are given in the following section.



Fig. 11: Network of partners of the BioSense.

Table 5: Dissemination and networking activities in which the BioSense staff participated

Type of dissemination and networking activity Number/pieces

Media appearances

TV and radio reports 16

Article reports in daily newspapers in print 10

Article reports published electronically 35

High-impact conferences 31

National and international promotional activities

(open days, presentations to a wider public, fairs..) 50

Networking activities

(official meetings with academia, industry, governmental representatives…) 56

Training activities

Hard (laboratory equipment, workshops related to scientific knowledge) and

soft skills (organizational, managerial, communication skills etc.)

20

Publications

Books 1

Book chapters 5

Journal papers 73



Promotional content

BioSense branded folder 3260

Project leaflet 150

BioSense brochure 1100

BioSense T-shirts 800

BioSense mug 1340

BioSense notepad 3100

BioSense pen 2420

BioSense promotional book “Make Sense” 1500

BioSense umbrella 100

BioSense bag 200

Fig. 12: Excerpts from media releases.



4. The potential impact, the main dissemination activities

and exploitation of results

4.1 Potential impact

The BioSense has been significantly reinforced within InnoSense in various aspects including

research capacities, infrastructure, business activities, and networking. The results presented in

the previous section clearly confirms that the visibility and awareness of the BioSense has

remarkable been increased in the last three years, Namely, the BioSense gathers a strong

community of researchers from different fields whose multidisciplinary work delivers novel ICT

solutions for application in biosystems. As such, the BioSense represents a role model at national

and regional levels in terms of research, business, and institutional capacities.

Strong research capacity and forefront research in the emerging scientific fields will bring

scientific breakthroughs across a range of topics. Our research groups - Nano and

microelectronics, Communication and signal processing, Remote sensing and GIS, Robotics,

Knowledge discovery, and biosystem research – will synergistically act and provide a large scientific

impact in all field of research. Some of the expected scientific results are:

new materials, principles, fabrication technologies and devices for ultra-sensitive and highly-

selective detection and sensing of parameters previously non detectable or monitored only by

complex apparatus;

technologies for optimal delivery of external inputs to crops;

artificial structures for a full control of electromagnetic, acoustic and phononic waves for

sensing and actuation applications;

understanding of genotype-phenotype connections;

new algorithms for multi-parameter optimisation;

microbial metagenomic mapping etc.

Research and innovation at the BioSense will also lead to a number of results with a high impact

not only for the scientific community and the general level of human knowledge but also for the

society as a whole and quality of life, since it will provide answers to a broad range of stakeholders’

needs across the agrifood value chain, as summarized in Fig. 13.

Namely, the growing world population has resulted in rising demand for agricultural and food

products: according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, world population is

expected to grow by over a third, or 2.3 billion people, between 2009 and 2050; food production

presents on of the major, if not the major challenge for agriculture. Furthermore, other barriers

represented by, among others, the limited availability of land and the disruptive effects of climate

change, have a strong impact on the farmers' supply capability. Precision agriculture is an effective

tool to tackle these challenges and increase productivity and efficiency by employing

technologies that make the farming process smarter, more connected, and data-driven.

The BioSense research agenda as well as research and institutional capacities have been proven

to perfectly meet the abovementioned challenges. In other words, the BioSense has a strong

impact on development of precision agriculture concepts, in particular on national and

regional levels. More importantly, the food production is a global problem and therefore the impact

of the BioSense on the overall society is more prominent. The BioSense vision of the future

agriculture was shown in Fig. 3.

BioSense Institute has an established strong national-wide network in the domains of agrifood and

ICT. In its function as a living lab for precision agriculture (PA4ALL) and beyond, it cooperates

closely with a range of stakeholders including 675 lead end-users from the agricultural production



community, Vojvodina ICT cluster which brings together 30 high-tech SMEs, the Provincial

Secretariat for Agriculture, Water and Forestry of Vojvodina, water management authority Vode

Vojvodine, various NGOs, large international agri-input companies (Syngenta, Pioneer, Victoria…),

large regional agrifood groups (Delta Agrar, MK Group, Matijevic…) etc. This strong network and

our dedication to excellent research and innovation guarantee that the BioSense will significantly

boost the end-user driven innovation and generate large economic impact.

Owing to the BDD and strong dedication to the development of the entrepreneurial spirit of the

researchers, the potential of the BioSense to participate in Horizon 2020 projects and other

industry- or EU-co-funded research has been remarkably improved. Namely, the BioSense is

participating in 10 H2020 projects, among which the most prestigious is ANTARES from Teaming

call. Also, we have established collaboration with leading agricultural companies such as MK group,

Delta Agrar, and Syngenta, which indicates our strong potential to strengthen and diversify our

income base.

Taking into consideration its overall potential, the BioSense is considered as a fruitful research

environment which attracts young Serbian researchers and encourages the return of scientists

from diaspora. In that manner, the BioSense actively work to reduce the brain drain, one of

the main problems of Serbian economy.

Although strong, the influence of the BioSense on national government and public sector bodies is

expected to become even more prominent in the years to come. Namely, leading position of the

BioSense in ICT application in biosystems, at national and regional levels, has set the BioSense

as a key player in providing information relevant for policy and strategy formulation.

The proposed Project also created an impact at the European level. Recently H2020 projects

granted to the BioSense undoubtedly confirm that the reinforced BioSense Institute has imposed

itself as a strong scientific and business partner not only on the national and regional levels, but

also on the European level. In that manner, the BioSense has been strongly integrated into ERA

supporting high-quality research and ensuring technology and knowledge transfer.

Fig. 13: Main impacts of BioSense research in the agrifood value chain.



Although Serbia has marked some important improvements in research and innovation in the past

decade, a significant effort is required to catch up to European standards and some neighboring

countries. Weaknesses are predominantly rooted in lack of an innovation culture to follow research.

The BioSense, with human and infrastructure reinforcement within InnoSense, has installed the

spirit of global excellence and competitiveness which helps generating high-level results in R&I.

Our concept, which is now widely recognized on national and regional level, will serve as a

replicable role model for other institutions in the region, and in that manner spread the

excellence in WBC region. Furthermore, we have initiated BioSense Regional concept that will

bring together research institutions located in WB countries (Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and

Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia, and Montenegro) and provide fertile grounds for a strong

scientific collaboration, knowledge transfer, and idea exchange between the selected individual

centers/research groups/institutions recognized as leading in their regions.

Recently won H2020 grants, the success of our Phase II H2020 Teaming proposal (where we

have entered the short list of the selected proposals, while the final outcome is still unknown at

this moment), new industrial partners, expanded partnering network, and a close collaboration

with the provincial and national governments, represent only some of the achievements that

ensure further fast development and sustainability of the Institute.

4.2 Main dissemination activities

In order to achieve the project objectives and strong impact, we designed a detailed dissemination

plan. Dissemination activities were performed with the aim to promote and present our activities and

increase our visibility within a whole stakeholder ecosystem.

The dissemination activities were performed on several levels and they targeted scientific

community, provincial and national policy-making bodies, SMEs, companies in agrifood, farmers,

student and general population. The dissemination means included web presentation, promotional

material, media appearances, publications, whilst the dissemination channels included mass media,

conferences, workshops etc.

Dissemination and networking activities in which the BioSense staff participated were summarized

in the previous section, and here we present highlights of the dissemination activities.

Namely, during the course of the Project, two workshops were organized in which InnoSense and the

BioSense as a whole were presented to a number of stakeholders as well as to media, Fig. 14 and 15.

First BioSense Scientific Workshop (18-20.02.2015) gathered around 100 experts from the three on

going FP7 projects (InnoSense, EOPOWER and ADVANTAGE) and researchers and industry

representatives from all over the world. The workshop covered the topics from sensor design,

machine-to-machine communications and remote sensing applications. The workshop demonstrated

the BioSense Institute as a regional leader in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research

involving ICT, agriculture, ecology, environmental engineering and forestry. 38 speakers/experts

from EU and WBC not involved in the InnoSense Project were invited.

Second International BioSense Workshop (10-12.02.2016) gathered EC and Serbian Government

representatives, researchers, and industry representatives from all over the world, altogether around

200 experts. The Workshop was joint event of three ongoing projects: InnoSense, ANTARES and

FRACTALS.

As stated previously, the activities of the BioSense attracted a great attention of media, which is

a clear evidence of raising awareness of the BioSense and the importance of its work whose

results affects not only research community, but also business world and society as a whole.



Fig. 14: Moments from the First BioSense Scientific Workshop.

Fig. 15: Moments from Second International BioSense Workshop.



A number of media appearances also indicates that the BioSense Institute has been recognized as a

resource that can boost national economic growth and overall wellbeing. For instance, the H2020

project IoF2020 was jointly presented to media by the Prime Minister of the Province of

Vojvodina Igor Mirovic and the director of the BioSense Institute Vladimir Crnojevic, which

undoubtedly confirms that the BioSense has become the national major player in application of ICT

in biosystems, Fig. 16.

We note that the efforts of the BioSense to disseminate Project results have continued beyond the

lifetime of the project. Namely, the BioSense has continued to take part in various events

including participation at workshops and conferences, events organized by the European

Commission, industrial partners, or governmental bodies. Thus, the awareness of our activities

is being raised constantly over a wide circle of audiences, ranging from scientific, through

industrial to governmental (decision-making). This has resulted in BioSense being widely

recognized for its research excellence and services offering to stakeholders. For example, currently

the system of research funding in the Province of Vojvodina is being redesigned, and BioSense

researchers have been invited as key experts to suggest how the transformation of the funding

policies should be made to enable more tangible results and a higher rate of the transfer of research

results into the industry. At the same time, the advice of BioSense researchers is sought after in re-

shaping the governmental policies in the field of agriculture, both on the provincial and the national

levels.

In addition, the BioSense staff are often invited to deliver plenary talks at the events organized

by various governmental bodies, which bears a strong evidence that the results and vision of

BioSense have been recognized widely as very important for development not only of academic

community but also for the national industry and society as a whole.

We have also established a comprehensive web presentation of the BioSense Institute which can be

found at http://biosens.rs/?page_id=6597&lang=en. The presentation provides a detailed insight into

BioSense work and activities and it enables efficient information delivery, high quality presentation

and quick search through all the organizational units. Screenshot of the homepage can be viewed in

Fig. 17.

Fig. 16: Joint presentation of H2020 project IoF2020 by PM of the Province of Vojvodina Igor

Mirovic and the director of the BioSense Institute Vladimir Crnojevic.

http://biosens.rs/?page_id=6597&lang=en



Table 5 in the previous section indicates that various promotional material was realized within the

Project. Fig. 18 shows the BioSense promotional material, among which one should note the

BioSense promotional book “Make Sense”, Fig. 19.

Fig. 17: Screenshot of the homepage of the BioSense Institute web presentation.

Fig. 18: BioSense promotional material.



Namely, the BioSense Institute brochure “Make Sense” is designed for a wide target group: farmers,

decision makers, scientific community and in general diversely specialized stakeholders in the agri-

food sector. Each segment of the brochure is conceived to intrigue the reader and awakes its interest

in the whole story. The BioSense mission, vision, stories, facts and effective images are combined to

deliver more general picture of its activities and challenges they respond, and not some fast outdating

content.

The brochure promotes the newly founded BioSense Institute emphasizing its core activity: ICT

application in agriculture, and the research excellence in this needs-driven research. The brochure

stresses the pivotal role of ICT application in ensuring sustainable, smart and inclusive growth of

agriculture, and promotes the BioSense’s multidisciplinary research scope: from nanoelectronics to

robotics focused on enabling technology.

Fig. 19: Excerpts from the BioSense promotional book “Make Sense”.



The aim of the brochure is not only to present the BioSense Institute organizational structure, and its

equipment, but as well to convey some motivational messages, to report some successful stories, and

to present research groups, directions, and projects. This approach offers straightforward recognition

of the BioSense Institute as a pillar supporting the regional development of sustainable agriculture

and creating a positive impact to the lives of people.

The broshure is divided into three parts. The first introductory part contains foreword - condensed

information on our mission, BioSense vision for agriculture of the future, and Q-Helix. The central

part presents some successfull scientific stories, images with motivational messages, and our work on

promotion of the research among children. The final part provides information on organizational

structure, available equipment, research groups, references and projects.

4.3 Exploitation of the results

The BioSense has been marked as a prominent research institution for its excellent human resources

and research infrastructure, and consequently for the research results in the field of ICT applications

in biosystems and their high potential to be commercialized.

One of the most tangible results of the project represent hired people that have a range of skills in

the field of interest of the BioSense. Since most of the hired people had come from international

institutions, they have also brought and applied new research concepts and upgraded competitive

spirit in the BioSense. The hired people published 36 papers during the project execution, which

significantly increased the visibility of the BioSense in the relevant communities. Moreover,

knowledge transfer from the hired people to the BioSense staff built up the knowledge base of the

researchers which will be exploited for generation of new results.

During the project execution, the BioSense organized trainings with the aim to encourage

entrepreneurial spirit among researchers, to introduce all the researchers with the Horizon2020

programme as well as with the importance of the Intellectual Property protection, as well as to

improve soft skills of the researchers in terms of managerial, organizational, and business skills. The

improved skills and significantly upgraded knowledge allow researchers to participate in the

rigorous H2020 calls, and in collaboration with BDD to obtain funds in 10 H2020 projects so far.

Moreover, 5 projects strongly related to agrifood sector, have been commissioned to the

BioSense by the Provincial Government.

Another important project result is the upgraded BioSense laboratory. Form the very beginning of

its installation, the equipment has been exploited and contributed to accelerated and improved

scientific results. In other words, the purchased equipment enabled research diversification and

creation of new research paths in the BioSense. Furthermore, we aim to establish a Shared

Research Facility which will allow access to our equipment to external users, who will only be

charged for the time of use, under a not-for-profit pricing scheme. Apart from the broad impact

to external stakeholders, the Shared Research Facility will also provide cross-fertilization benefits to

BioSense researchers.

Hired BDD team members have paved the way to the adoption of novel concepts in the work of the

BioSense, primarily in terms of shifting the research towards market and commercialization.

Extensive dissemination and networking activities enabled establishing of a diverse network of

over 150 partners including academia, industry, SME, government, and public sector. Such a

strong network enabled the BioSense to apply improved research concept – the one that takes

into consideration the needs and input form a wide range of stakeholders. Namely, we have

established PA4ALL – the Living lab for precision agriculture enabling that research and

innovation at BioSense is developed in a close interaction with farmers and the agrifood sector,



government bodies, entrepreneurs and business community, international researchers, and citizens.

We plan to upgrade the Living Lab so it will serve as an open air show-room where innovative

solutions from and for BioSense ecosystem can be actively implemented. For instance, farmers will

be able to see solutions of interest to them implemented in real-world settings, while scientists from

BioSense and other collaborating institutions will be able to run experiments and test prototypes in

the operational environment. Demonstration farm will also be a place for regional stakeholders to

meet, attend trainings and participate in co-development workshops.

In addition, the novel concepts, accumulated knowledge and achieved results opened up the

perspective for transfer of knowledge to the market. The BioSense and BDD strongly supports

the contracted research, i.e. the collaboration with the industry in order to accelerate potential

commercialization of an idea. Such contracts provide an excellent opportunity for researchers to

become familiar with the mentality and the requirements of the corporate world. As stated

previously, beside leading national agricultural companies including MK group and Delta

Agrar, world leading companies such as Syngenta has shown interest in our activities and

therefore we are intensively working on the ideas for joint projects.

Also, we support technology transfer to industry, which implies that the BioSense has patented the

results and requires specific targeted actions on behalf of BDD to attract the right industrial player. In

addition, the BioSense gives a support for foundation of spin‐offs, which are another way of

producing the proof‐of‐principle of inventions, and of valorizing the results of research. They can be

hosted by business incubators offering infrastructure and services.

Moreover, we continued our collaboration with WBC partners in Croatia and Montenegro, and

established collaboration with partners in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and FYR Macedonia, with

the aim to foster the development of the BioSense Regional concept. BioSense Regional will provide

fertile grounds for a strong scientific collaboration, knowledge transfer, and idea exchange between

the selected individual centers/research groups/institutions recognized as leading in their regions,

thus contributing to de-fragmentation of the regional research space, academia-to-industry transfer of

knowledge and focusing on the common goals related to sustainable development.



5. Website address and relevant contact details

The website of the BioSense Institute is http://biosens.rs/?page_id=6597&lang=en

The website of the InnoSense project is http://biosens.rs/?page_id=8953&lang=en

The address of the coordinating institution:

BioSense Institute

Dr. Zorana Djindjica 1

21000 Novi Sad

Serbia

The contact of the project coordinator prof. Vesna Crnojevic-Bengin is [email protected]



Documents

1. Executive summary - CORDIS · 2016. 12. 13. · InnoSense FP7-REGPOT-316191 PROJECT FINAL REPORT – OCTOBER 2016 1 1. Executive summary Reinforcement of BioSense Centre – ICT